Anne C. Dranginis of Litchfield, a retired state Appellate Court Judge who remain in private law practice, moderated a Democratic gubernatorial debate in Torrington on Thursday night that sparked the condemnation of Republicans in the legislature who are opposed to the nomination of Supreme Court Justice Andrew McDonald of Stamford to the post of chief justice. less

Anne C. Dranginis of Litchfield, a retired state Appellate Court Judge who remain in private law practice, moderated a Democratic gubernatorial debate in Torrington on Thursday night that sparked the ... more

Photo: Gary Lewis / Contributed Photo

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Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin

Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin

Photo: Jessica Hill / Associated Press

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Susan Bysiewicz, a former secretary of the state and former member of the House of Representatives.

Susan Bysiewicz, a former secretary of the state and former member of the House of Representatives.

TORRINGTON — The six leading Democrats in the gubernatorial race didn’t agree on everything Thursday night in a forum here in City Hall, but they were united in condemning Republicans for attacking state Supreme Court Justice Andrew McDonald’s nomination for chief justice.

During a late-evening response to a question, they warned that the solid-red opposition McDonald met in the Judiciary Committee is proof that Washington-style partisanship has migrated north, threatening the independence of Connecticut’s Judicial Branch and signaling a signaling future consequences if GOP lawmakers win the state Senate, House of Representatives, or governor’s office in the fall.

“I went over to that 13-hour marathon hearing the other night around 10 o’clock, to hear the last couple of hours and I cannot tell you how painful it was to see an unprecedented politicization of a judicial nomination process in our state,” said Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin.

“Our state has stood out in having a judicial-nomination process that was focused, above all else, on the quality of the nominee, and you can’t tell me a single one of those Republicans who took the party-line vote against Andrew McDonald did it because he wasn’t qualified,” said Bronin, a former lawyer in the Obama administration who went on to be chief counsel for Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s Capitol office.

“This was heart-breaking to see our state and our Connecticut Republicans embrace the playbook of (U.S. Senate Majority Leader) Mitch McConnell and the national Republicans, and we have to fight back,” said Bronin, who began his Connecticut political career managing McDonald’s 2004 state-senate campaign.

Susan Bysiewicz of Middletown, a former state lawmaker and secretary of the state, recalled her six years on the Judiciary Committee, vetting and voting on judicial nominees, who first go through a screening process in the nonpartisan Judicial Selection Commission.

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“I have never seen anything so political in the past two decades,” she told the crowd of about 180 people in an event sponsored by Northwestern Connecticut Democrats. She said the 18-18 split in the state Senate, and the small 80-71 Democratic majority in the House, has “empowered” Republicans to promote partisanship. “We have to win back the majority so we can have a much more-fair process,” she said.

The issue was raised by the forum’s moderator, Anne C. Dranginis, a former state Appellate Court judge who is now in private practice with the firm of Pullman & Comley. Legislative Republicans said this week that their opposition springs from McDonald’s judicial activist, particularly his support of a 4-3 decision, written by Justice Richard Palmer, that led to the resentencing of Death Row inmates to life in prison, following the 2012 repeal of the state’s death penalty.

“This is exactly what the people are tired of,” said Sean Connolly of East Hartford, the state’s former commissioner of Veterans’ Affairs. “The finger pointing, the blaming, the devisiveness. People want results. Confirm the justice and let’s get working on our economy.”

“The politicizing of this, a distinguished jurist, someone who’s well qualified, and then to see the partisan attacks that could put in jeopardy that institution is wrong,” said Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim. “We need to get above that. We need to remember that elections have results and the election results have impacts on our lives.”

Jonathan Harris, the former West Hartford mayor, state senator and commissioner of the state Department of Consumer Protection, called the committee action - a 20-20 tie vote that puts McDonald’s nomination in jeopardy - “an outrage.”

Harris called McDonald, 51, of Stamford, “a person of skill, of integrity, he knows the law, he’s sharp in his decision making.” He stressed the need to build back Democratic majorities, like Tuesday’s night’s historic victory for a vacant state House seat from Stratford.

Ned Lamont, a communications executive from Greenwich, who spent hours at McDonald’s committee hearing, which began at 10 a.m. on Monday and culminated in a 12:50 a.m. vote Tuesday morning, said McDonald, with five years on the court, deserves the near unanimous support in the legislature that Chase T. Rogers, the recently retired chief justice, received.

“Instead, it reminds me of what somebody once said about a high-tech lynching,” Lamont continued, referring to a comment made by Clarence Thomas during his 1991 U.S. Supreme Court nomination.

“It’s absolutely wrong and maybe if people inject some policy into this, they want to start executing people again in the state of Connecticut, it’s not going to happen,” Lamont said. “He’s a highly qualified person who deserves it. But what really worries me is that the poison that has infected Washington D.C. and Congress and the partisanship is beginning to leak into the body politic here in the state of Connecticut. And this example of what’s going on with Andrew McDonald is the opposite of everywhere we want to be.”